Safe
by shortibabe
Summary: Thoughts from Freddie during IOpen a Restaurant. Both Seddie and Creddie depending how you take it.


**So… I know that many fellow Seddie shippers like myself seem to be upset or confused about Iown a restaurant. Many people have been saying that Freddie is a jerk for hurting Sam, and that he is completely out of character. I admit that I may have been one of them. But after reflecting on it a while, I realized something a little different. This story is by no means of giving Freddie an excuse, but more of a different view of what actually may be going on inside Freddie's head in the episode. I hope you enjoy it.**

Carly Shay: beautiful, perfect, reliable, sweet, honest, smart, predictable Carly Shay. Carly was the one girl in Freddie's life that he knew would never change.

She was naively beautiful. There was no denying it. She had luscious brunette hair that flowed gracefully down her back, and brown eyes that sparkled ever so gently when she smiled. She always dressed in cute little girly clothes that showed off her girly curves ever so slightly. Freddie was a boy, he had hormones. He couldn't not notice it. Carly never had any problems attracting the boys.

Freddie had always considered Carly as the perfect girl that he wanted to marry when he grew up. Mrs. Carly Shay Benson. It had always made sense in his head. As long as he could remember growing up he had that puppy dog crush on Carly. It was just so easy to love Carly. He would do anything for her. She was one of his best friends. She always had been.

Carly was reliable. She was always there to help out a friend in need. She didn't like getting in trouble, but she would do it if it was a way to help out a friend. She was always willing to take the rap for Sam if she needed it because she didn't want to lose her friend. Carly was always a positive influence on both Sam and Freddie. She was the kind of friend you could count on 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

She was sweet. Freddie could only remember a few times that Carly didn't have a happy carefree smile on her face. She was constantly trying to make peace between Sam and Freddie when they had their squabbles. She'd make Sam apologize to Freddie, and then she'd proceed to taking care of him. Carly never failed in making Freddie feel better.

Carly was honest. She would never refuse to tell Freddie what he needed to be told. Carly always made things clear in his head, and she never held back when something needed to be said. She would listen to Freddie, and he felt like she genuinely cared what he said most of the time. Carly wasn't afraid to show, or talk about her feelings. She was always open with Freddie.

She was smart. Carly always did her homework and studied hard for school. She constantly worked hard and was responsible. She writes multiple creative ideas for ICarly, and always puts 100% effort into everything. Carly is never lazy because she knows what she needs to do to be successful. It's just who she is.

Carly, to sum her up, is predictable. Freddie always knew what was going to occur with Carly, and she never really did surprise him. She was constant, and Freddie always knew what to expect from her. That was the way their friendship worked. Freddie was confident that their relationship together would never change. And he didn't want it to.

But then there was Sam.

Sam Puckett was a beautiful girl, but a different beautiful than Carly. Her cascading wild curly blonde locks that swarmed around her petite frame attracted everyone's attention when she walked into a room, but Sam never noticed people noticing her. She never noticed when Freddie's crush swayed from Carly to her, because she never thought she was good enough for Freddie. But there was that time when Freddie knew he was right for her. When he looked into her daring blue eyes that often twinkled mischievously, Freddie knew he was a goner in one way or another; whether it was getting in trouble because he knew he was falling in love with her, or because she was about to get him with another one of her schemes.

She was not perfect, at least to some people. She was more frustrating and irritating than any other person that Freddie knew. She could consume more food than a family of sumo wrestlers on a daily basis. She was rough and pushy and always knew how to drive Freddie crazy. She was always looking to pick some kind of fight with others around her. She was tough, and didn't just take things. She knew how to stand up for herself. And maybe some guys didn't like that kind of thing. Maybe some guys just wanted a daffodil, which Sam would never be. So maybe some people would consider her imperfect. But that never mattered to Freddie. After all he had fallen in love with her.

Sam may not be reliable all the time, but the times that Freddie truly needed her, she was there. And the same went for him. As much as they said they hated each other when they were younger, Freddie always knew it wasn't true. They were friends, and maybe they were odd friends, but they were nonetheless friends. When it really counted, Freddie knew that he could count on Sam to have his back. It was one of the things he appreciated… and well… loved about Sam.

Sam Puckett was not sweet. She was what most people would consider a bully. She constantly seemed to have to make fun of people, whether it was calling him names, or commenting on his outfit, or making fun of his "nerd-iness" And it wasn't just Freddie she picked on, she picked on other people too. Sam was the kind of girl who took care of business. She stuck up for her friends buy taking down the people that hurt them, saying it was her job to make fun of him, not anyone else's. Sam had a…. different way of showing that she cared. But Freddie had come to know, that despite what anyone thought, Sam did have feelings, and she could be hurt. Freddie knew this more than anyone.

She was honest too… sometimes more than Freddie wanted her to be. Sam Puckett was right most of the time in her life… and she made Freddie well aware of this. Most of the time it was just stupid silly things, but there were times when Sam's honesty really did help Freddie. Like the time that he was dating Carly, and Sam told him that Carly really didn't love him but actually what he did; he knew that she was right. It was one of the times that she had reminded him that she really did care about him. Freddie remembered another time when Sam was honest. He remembered the time that Sam told the world that he had never kissed a girl, but then after it had almost "ruined" his life, she had told them that she never had her first kiss either. Then most shocking of all, she came out to find him and apologize, and then ended up sharing their first kiss. Sam Puckett: his first kiss, and the first girl that he had ever said I love you to. Who would have thought?

Sam was also smart. She often liked to hide the fact that she was smart, but she was quite intelligent. She had shown Freddie up too many times for him to remember and Freddie had never pointed it out to her, that she was actually smarter than she let on. Sam was smart, she was just lazy. She didn't see the point in working hard in school, because she didn't see the point of it. Freddie was just starting to understand this, because Sam didn't often let people in. Freddie now knew that Sam didn't think she was good enough to go anywhere in life. So she kept her intelligence a secret and slacked off in school. It wasn't healthy, but that's just the way Sam was, and Freddie was learning to both respect it, and try to convince her that she was better than she thought.

But it was frustrating. Sam was constantly frustrating. She was not predictable in any way. Freddie never knew what was going to happen around Sam. She constantly surprised him, and for most of his childhood, Freddie had lived in fear of what Sam had cooked up for him next. He took both verbal and physical abuse from her for multiple years of his life, and most people asked him why he was her friend in the first place. They used to always say that they hated each other, and for a while Freddie had started to believe that maybe they did. Sam confused him, she never made any sense. He was constantly learning something new about her, like he could never learn everything there was to know about Sam Puckett. Some things he liked, and others he didn't, but as he grew older he realized that it was just a part of life. He realized that was how his and Sam's friendship worked. And then Sam did something that threw Freddie into such a whirl of confusion that he knew his life would never be the same.

Sam Puckett kissed him. It was the night of the lock in and he had just discovered that Sam was in love, thanks to his new mood app that they had created. Carly and Freddie had assumed that it was Brad, and so Freddie being the nice guy he was had told Sam to just go for it and go after the guy that she liked. And she did… she grabbed him by his shoulders and kissed him. She had kissed him with so many years of passion behind it. It shocked Freddie, and before he knew it Sam had run away. He couldn't find her for days, and he realized that through all the years he had fallen in love with her, just as she had fallen in love with him. They started to date, and they fought all the time, but after a while they seemed to have started to make it work. Despite what everyone had thought, they might actually be able to last as a couple after all. But then before he knew it, it was over. They called it mutual and agreed it was the right thing to do, but Freddie knew he had to tell her before he lost the chance. So he told her. He told her that he loved her. And she had said it back. Nothing could ever be the same between them.

But then it was like nothing had changed, like they had never dated in the first place. Sam went back to picking on him like they were 13 again. Freddie didn't understand it. And it hurt him in ways that Freddie didn't know he could hurt. As cheesy as it sounded, Freddie felt like his heart had ripped in two. No one else had ever been able to make him feel this was. When Carly rejected him year after year he had never felt like this. So why now? Every time Freddie saw her every day, and she acted like nothing had ever happened between them, Freddie felt like she no longer cared. It was killing him inside. He couldn't take it anymore. He needed to escape; he needed to run away, to forget the pain inside of him.

He needed to go to somewhere safe. Somewhere he couldn't get hurt anymore.

Carly was safe.

The more Freddie thought about it, the more he questioned it. Why couldn't he go back to having a crush on Carly? Carly didn't hurt him, not the way a certain blonde-demon could. Could it be too late for Carly to love him? To love him in a way where he could no longer get hurt? The question was constantly on his mind. Before he knew it, he had said it out loud.

"It is too late for you to love me?"

Freddie saw the surprised and confused look on Carly's face. "What?"

He quickly brushed in aside, thinking maybe she hadn't heard what he had said. "Nothing."

But Carly just had to bring it up again. Not that Freddie could blame her. "Did you just say…."

"No!" He quickly interjected.

But still, he couldn't help himself from… well… wondering. Why can't I just pick up my crush on Carly again? Sam obviously doesn't care about me. She's acting like nothing ever happened between us.

So when Sam asked him whether or not he had a crush on Carly in a nonchalant friendship kind of way "Hey… do you got a new little crush on her?" he tried to deny it. "Pfft… no…pfft." And then he smiled and nodded at her, who always seemed to know what he was thinking, because she obviously didn't care about him in "that way" anymore. Or else she'd be trying to stop this, or getting jealous or hurt or something.

She just looked at him with no emotion and said "Go"

So what else was he supposed to do? He was hurting, and he was tired of it. She obviously had gotten over him and he knew that he couldn't keep pining after her because they had tried it once and they discovered they weren't right for each other. They had a dysfunctional relationship that just… didn't work.

So Freddie ran. He ran to the place where he knew he would be safe from the pain and suffering and hurt. He ran back to perfect predictable Carly, who was incapable of hurting him.

Carly was safe.

But deep down inside was a thought that he kept pushing to the back of his mind….. Will it ever be enough?

**There you have it. I have no idea if this is what Dan's plan is, and I'm probably completely off, but the way I see it Freddie is hurting. He's hurting in ways that he's never hurt before and he doesn't know how to deal with it. So he goes back to what he knows. What he's comfortable with. He just doesn't know what else to do. I hope that you enjoyed this, and maybe now will look at the episode in a different way. Maybe you will see what I see. **

**Or maybe I'm just crazy. Who knows?**

**Review!**


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